Subtitles of the Movie

To me working with a graph is the equivalent of Superman working with kryptonite because it hurts my head, but Illustrator can create graphs for you and it can also import data that you save from an application such as Excel as long as you save it in a format that Illustrator can understand. So I'm going to go to the graphs and I'm going to choose to make an area graph. Then what I have to do is click and drag out a region of Excel and then the data window appears. Here is where I can input my data. So I'm going to type the word Monday here. I'll tab over and type Tuesday, and I'll tab over again and type Wednesday. Then I'm going to click on this field here and just type a number. So I'll just put 20, I'll tab over and I'll type 5. Then I'll tab over to Wednesday and type 7. Actually, you know what? I'll make that 10. Once I have my data all in place I can click this checkmark here to accept this, and then I can go ahead and close this window and I see my data presented for me here. Now, of course, sometimes you have to change the graph style to really see your data in the way that you want to see it, so I'm going to highlight the entire graph, I'm going to go to my Object menu and I'm going to change the graph type down here by going to Graph, and I'm going to choose Type, and then I'm going to choose the Pie Graph. Of course I can add a drop shadow if I want to, I can add a legend to the top of the graph, and I can do all kinds of things. So I'll click OKay, and now I see that I have a drop shadow and I have my data and the numbers are presented in the chart. The great thing about a graph, and if there is such a thing as a great thing about a graph, is that I can use my Direct Selection tool and change the colors of these wedges of the pie at any time. So I'm going to grab my swatches and I'm going to change that drop shadow to the dark green and I'll click on this wedge here, make it a lighter green; grab this one, make it purple, and grab this one and make it blue. And that one back there I'll make brown. I can also do the same thing for these blocks here. So I can try to figure out which one's Monday, which one's Tuesday, and I can also use the Eyedropper tool of course if I forget which one's which. So I can grab my Eyedropper and I can choose one of these boxes here and just click and choose the color that I want for that particular day or event. And, that is pretty much in a nutshell how you create graphs in Illustrator. Once again, you can always change the type by going to the Object Menu. You can also change the data, and you can input new data. Click accept when you're done, so I can, for example, go here and type Thursday and then I can come over here and type something else like 40. Once I'm happy I hit okay and my graph is updated. So let me go ahead and close this window and show you that I have a new representation of my graph data that's ready to go and I can always change it at any time. I can grab this and I can move that over if I want to. I can grab any of these elements and move them because they're in a group but I can always, once again, grab the Selection tool, and when I click I grab everything, just like most objects that are grouped in Illustrator. You have a group, then you can use the Direct Selection tool to select objects within that group. So, that is the Graph tool in a nutshell. For people who are more familiar with using graphs and data I'm sure you'll find this tool much more useful to you and you'll know what a lot of these things mean, but in the meantime it's time for me to lie down and try to erase the memory of working with these graphs.